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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBreaking from tech giants, Democrats consider becoming an anti monopoly party
By David Weigel September 4 at 11:05 AM
A messy, public brawl over a Google critics ouster from a Washington think tank has exposed a fissure in Democratic Party politics. On one side theres a young and growing faction advocating new anti-monopoly laws, and on the other a rival faction struggling to defend itself.
At issue is a decades-long relationship between Democrats and tech companies, with Democratic presidents signing off on deregulation and candidates embracing money and innovations from firms like Google and Facebook. Now, locked out of power and convinced that same coziness with large corporations cost them the presidency, Democrats are talking themselves into breaking with tech giants and becoming an anti-monopoly party.
The argument had a breakthrough last week when it was reported that Barry Lynn, a monopoly critic and longtime scholar at the Google-funded New America Foundation, was leaving and taking his 10-person initiative with him.
Lynn, who has been critical of Google, had praised European regulators for hitting the company with a $2.7 billion antitrust fine. The foundation, which has received more than $21 million from Google, removed Lynns comments from its website. A lot of people see this as a tipping point, Lynn said of his departure in an interview. This is something thats upset people on both sides of the aisle.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/breaking-from-tech-giants-democrats-consider-becoming-an-antimonopoly-party/2017/09/04/3edc7e92-8f56-11e7-84c0-02cc069f2c37_story.html
Wounded Bear
(58,793 posts)It was Repubs in the early 20th Century. Maybe now it's the Dems turn.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)The increasing power and reach of tech giants has been troubling me for some years, and no one has seemed to care about this creeping concentration of power . . . or at least care enough even to question it or do something about it.
For most people, the power of Google is pretty invisible (except in the aspect of all the ads that appear on our screens for anything we may done a search for, whether for ourselves, an aged parent, an inquisitive grandchild, or a mere fancy). But it has our lives in lock: it's not just a question of privacy. It's an economic influence, and an influence on the kinds of information to which we have access.
The biggest bugaboo for me is Amazon, which is out of control. Not content to wreak havoc on the publishing industry (strong-arming them into pricing that has affected the kinds of books they're able or willing to publish) and retail in general, they've taken over one of the nation's largest newspapers, and now are encroaching on our food supply.
I've been receiving daily emails from the Washington Post ever since I signed up to receive daily briefings from Ezra Klein's Wonkblog many years ago, before he left to start his own endeavor. Just recently, these daily emails have been arriving not from the Washington Post but from Amazon! Really? Should that even be legal? Where is the bright line that would separate a business concern from a publishing one? I now refuse to open these emails.
We have an obligation to fight this alongside Democratic politicians. You don't have to buy from Amazon (no matter how convenient it is). Their prices are not always better, and if they are, most stores will match their price if you show them (I do it all the time). You can protest that Amazon is now pushing the newspaper that its owner also owns ... the effects are yet to be seen.
Like the consolidation of banks into giant behemoths that started in the late eighties and early nineties, this monopolization of tech companies needs to be aggressively fought before its too late to turn back. We'll have no right to complain ten years from now if we enable it go on now.
ismnotwasm
(42,028 posts)Not sure I agree with Mr. Yelp at all here, except as an ironical device
But this
The perception that politics are bought and sold exist when it's true, and also when it's not true. Unhitching the political wagon from corporate influence--tech or not-- will be a matter of some delicacy at certain times, and a sledge hammer at others. I hope we are wise enough to know which and when.